Blackouts hit Russia's Belgorod as Ukrainian drone attacks surge Residents of Russia's Belgorod region say blackouts, air-raid sirens and the sound of gunfire aimed at incoming Ukrainian drones are becoming increasingly common, as Kyiv retaliates against repeated bombardments of its cities with cross-border strikes of its own. It's so loud and so terrifying, says Nina, a Belgorod resident who asked us to change her name. I was coming back from the clinic when a siren went off. As usual, I received Telegram alerts about a drone attack. Then bursts of automatic gunfire broke out, I ran into a nearby courtyard and tried to hide under an arch, she recalls.

Three killed in latest Ukrainian strike on Russia's Belgorod region Three people have been killed and at least nine others injured in Ukraine's latest attack on the Russian border region of Belgorod, according to its governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov. The deaths happened following a strike on the village of Maslova Pristan early on Wednesday, Gladkov said. Emergency workers were continuing to search for people feared trapped under rubble. It is the third consecutive day that Ukraine has struck the region, leaving thousands of people without power and at least two other people dead. Ukraine has not commented on the attacks but has repeatedly struck targets inside Russia, including Belgorod, during the conflict, which is now in its fourth year.

Is Chicago the violent crime capital of the US? How did India-US relations decline so fast? A Ukrainian drone attack killed two women in the village of Golovchino in Russia's Belgorod region, Russia's state TASS news agency reports. A man who was seriously injured in a Ukrainian drone attack in Russia's Belgorod region in April has died in hospital, TASS reports. TASS also reported that Russian forces shot down 82 Ukrainian drones in a 24-hour period.

Russia has rejected a proposal from Ukraine to extend Russian President Vladimir Putin's unilateral three-day ceasefire as the United States grows increasingly impatient with stalled efforts to find a long-term solution to end the war. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed on Tuesday that Moscow had seen Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's offer to extend Putin's brief early May pause in fighting to 30 days. But Peskov said it would be "difficult to enter into a long-term ceasefire" without first clearing up a number of "questions". Zelenskyy had branded Putin's unilateral truce, which will last from May 8 to 10 and coincides with Moscow's celebrations to mark the 80th anniversary of its victory over Nazi Germany in World War II, as an "attempt at manipulation". The Ukrainian leader also questioned why Moscow would not agree to Kyiv's call for a ceasefire lasting at least 30 days and starting immediately.

Russia's Ministry of Defence reported Ukrainian drone strikes overnight and into Saturday. It said 26 drones were detected over the Belgorod region, 10 over Bryansk, and eight over Kursk, among several other regions. The strikes killed two people in Russia's Belgorod region, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Saturday. The governors of Kursk, Kaluga and Bryansk, all in western Russia, reported strikes in their regions as well. Ukraine's air force said it shot down a Russian strategic bomber with antiaircraft missiles for the first time since the war began in 2022.

Ukraine has struck the dome above a shutdown reactor at the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear station, the plant's Russian-installed administration said. It was not immediately clear what weapon was used in Sunday's attack against the nuclear plant, which was taken by Russian forces shortly after their full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, although the Russian state-owned nuclear agency Rosatom said the site had come under a drone attack. Radiation levels were normal and there was no serious damage after the attack, according to the plant's officials. But Rosatom later said that three people had been wounded, specifically in a drone strike near the site's canteen. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which has experts at the site, said it had been informed by the Russian-run plant that a drone had detonated at the site and the information was "consistent" with IAEA observations.

Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy gives his outlook on the conflict and offers an update on his countrys counter-offensive on Special Report. Russia's Defense Ministry said Ukraine launched a series of rocket and drone attacks into Russian territories with local officials reporting that two people, including a child, were killed in the attacks. Russia said 13 rockets and 32 drones were shot down over several Russian regions, according to Reuters. A child, born in 2014, was killed in the Bryansk region, while a man in the Belgorod region was also said to have died. Both regions are in western Russia and adjoin Ukraine.

At least two people were killed and two injured when debris from a destroyed Ukrainian drone fell on homes in Russia's Belgorod region, according to a local official. Belgorod regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said early on Thursday that Russian air defences shot down an "aircraft-type" unmanned aerial vehicle as it approached Belgorod city. "To great sorrow, there are dead. Operational services recovered the bodies of two people from the rubble – a man and a woman," Gladkov wrote on the Telegram messaging app. "As a result of falling debris, a private residential building caught fire," Gladkov said, adding later that the falling debris had completely destroyed one residential building, and partially damaged two others.

The governor of Russia's Belgorod region has said that Ukraine fired cluster munitions at a village near the Ukrainian border on Friday, but that there were no casualties or damage. The governor made the statement on Saturday during a daily briefing on his Telegram channel, without providing visual evidence. There was no immediate comment from Ukrainian authorities. "In Belgorod district, 21 artillery shells and three cluster munitions from a multiple-launch rocket system were fired at the village of Zhuravlevka," Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said. Ukraine received cluster bombs from the United States this month, but it has pledged to use them only to dislodge concentrations of enemy soldiers. They contain dozens of small bomblets that rain shrapnel over a wide area, but are banned in many countries due to the potential danger they pose to civilians.

The war in Ukraine has entered a new stage; this much we know. In the weeks leading up to the Ukrainian armed forces' long-anticipated counter-offensive, a series of attacks in Moscow and in the Belgorod Region, near the border with Ukraine, marked the most significant incursions into Russia since the full-scale war began. In the Belgorod Region, armed units overran villages and took hostages. In Moscow, two drones were shot down near the Kremlin on May 3rd. Four weeks later, eight drones crashed into residential buildings on the outskirts of the city.